


In The Line Of Fire

by veridanna



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: AU, Episode: s02e02 In the Line of Duty, Gen, Tok'ra
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-25
Updated: 2016-06-01
Packaged: 2018-06-04 10:21:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,627
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6654154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/veridanna/pseuds/veridanna
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>AU from E2.02, "In The Line of Duty". Jolinar has just moved to Sam when Sam is critically injured.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Critical

**Author's Note:**

> For those of us who find the Tok'ra fascinating, the episode that first brought SG-1 into contact with them is a magnet for AU stories. Many have been written, and to be honest, this is not the only one of mine! However, I think it will take some less usual twists and turns, so I hope readers enjoy it.  
> Rated M due to violence and (minor) character death, mostly in future chapters.

Sam pulled back from the Nasyan in shock and pain, only to have control swept away from her. An instant of terror is all she has before pain explodes across her shoulder, neck and the side of her head. Blackness engulfed her.

_“CARTER!”_ screamed Jack, seeing her go down under what his analytical side said was surely a fatal blast from the glider’s canon. He was moving even as he screamed, somehow getting to her, somehow getting them both through the stargate.

_Panic and instinct drove Jolinar as she linked herself into the core of her new host’s nervous systems. True blending took time – survival a mere two seconds. She reached automatically to soothe the wave of fear from her new host, only to lose focus as pain deluged across both their bodies. For an instant, Jolinar was lost, her consciousness fading to grey. NO! she cried, somehow finding the strength to fight her way back to conscious thought. Experience came to the fore as she sifted through the mass of input from her host’s system; in the fraction of a second, she pushed aside what could be mended later and poured her energy into healing her host’s heart. A sliver of metal, one of many that had struck her back, had sliced right into that most vulnerable organ._

In the chaos of the gateroom, Jack’s mind focused on only two things – the rest of his team was home safe and the medic had found a pulse and they were rushing Carter to the infirmary. He would have followed at once, but duty demanded otherwise; he had to stop and give General Hammond a hasty report. Daniel and Teal’c were caught up in sorting out the Nasyans – as soon as Hammond let him go, Jack was on his way to the infirmary, dreading what he would find and desperately hoping that Carter would make it.

The ability to handle a crisis situation – to identify the critical in the chaos and act without hesitation – was of equal importance to Janet’s medical abilities when she was chosen for this job. She was _there_ as Sam was rushed in, hearing the portable monitor they’d slapped on her shrilling its alarm as cardiac activity sank to critical levels. One shock. Two. The endless few seconds delay. _There_. Janet couldn’t let herself feel the relief that flooded a distant corner of her mind as she saw Sam’s heartbeat slowly stabilize; they had to get her breathing restarted as well.

By the time Jack appeared, Janet was just leaving Sam’s side to check on the rest of her team and patients and the nurses were stripping Sam’s gear and clothes to check for other injuries and prep her for a scan.

“She’s alive, Colonel.” Janet said softly on her way out, her expression all too understanding as she answered the question Jack couldn’t ask. “More than that, we don’t know yet.”

Jack kept his gaze on Sam’s face, not needing to ask the meaning of the artificial respirator or the defib that had obviously just been used. He settled against the wall, out of the way but keeping watch.

_Jolinar stubbornly clung to her task. Most of the damage had been healed – the offending shard of metal pushed up out of the way by the rapid cellular growth. She had almost lost, though, unable to find the energy to get the heart muscles back in sync; the sudden jolt of electricity had shocked her too, and it took precious seconds to recover. Still, the effects on her host were welcome; Jolinar stabilised her as best she could with her fast fading energy. Knowing she was not going to stay conscious, she attempted to set some triggers to wake her – only two were done before she slid down into oblivion._

A few minutes later, Jack was joined by an equally silent Daniel and Teal’c. Janet returned right behind them. The nurse was carefully taping a new temporary dressing over the third-degree burns at the base of Sam’s skull and across her neck and shoulder and he shook his head when Janet asked if there was any change.

Sam was still not breathing on her own. Janet reviewed the recording and sighed. At least her heartbeat was steady again, and the bleeding from the numerous small cuts on her back had ceased, but they had recovered several metal shards from those cuts – Janet called for a scan to determine how much shrapnel was still present. The mobile machine was small and needed to scan in five sections – the ones of Sam’s legs and pelvis were clear but the one of her chest showed almost a dozen small metal fragments still lodged in Sam’s body. Janet’s attention zeroed in on the fragment that almost looked to be _in_ Sam’s heart, although a closer look reveal it was actually just above it. Which made no sense – the entry wound was in Sam’s back and had it gone straight through as it logically must’ve, Sam would have been dead before Jack had got her through the gate.

A gasp from the tech pulled Janet’s mind from the puzzle and when she looked at the scan of Sam’s shoulders and head, she froze. _No. Oh gods! No!_ She’d seen the scan of Kowalski; she knew what the goa’uld looked like. Despite her desperate wish to deny it, she knew what she was seeing. Hastily she hushed the tech and turned to Sam, checking those burns. Now that she knew what to look for, she could just see the edge of the goa’uld itself, where Sam’s flesh had been scorched away and the goa’uld’s own body had been burned.

“Dr. Frasier.” Hammond stood in the doorway, his expression speaking volumes about his feelings.

Janet was so cold. She pushed away the urge to cry and looked at the general. She had to explain. A movement by the wall reminded her that Sam’s whole team was there, and she knew their world was about to shatter. “I’m sorry,” she began. “She’s alive, but… she… there is a goa’uld.” She watched the blank shock in their faces and drew in a deep breath. “I – just realised it from the scan.” She showed them silently – it wasn’t like it was difficult to interpret the image.

“How… when…” Daniel floundered.

“Colonel?”

Jack somehow remembered to breathe again and shove away the memories of Kowalski. He traced through his memory of the sequence of events on Nasya and he shook his head while answering Hammond dully, “I don’t know, Sir. But it must have been on Nasya.”

“The goa’uld is adult in size.” Teal’c said, still considering the scan. “It could not have been from a jaffa. Therefore, the most likely possibility is that one of the Nasyans was a host, and during the attack, that Nasyan was fatally injured, forcing the goa’uld to switch hosts.”

There wasn’t much to be said to that.

Hammond could not let himself dwell on the implications. “Could any of the other Nasyans be goa’uld?” he asked.

What was left of SG-1 exchanged glances and Jack shrugged. “We didn’t know about this one so… no idea, Sir.”

“Dr. Frasier?”

“I’ll arrange for scans to be done on all of them immediately, sir. And make sure everyone who was on Nasya or has been on contact with any Nasyan who has died is also checked.” Janet had started planning this as soon as she’d realised it had to have happened on Nasya. “And I’ll have a report for you as soon as possible.”

After that, guards were posted at the door to Sam’s room and – reluctantly – restraints were put in place. Jack and Daniel were drawn away to other duties, but Teal’c remained, standing both guard and vigil over their injured comrade.

* * *

There was another goa’uld present. One of the Nasyans – or at least, he had been thought to be Nasyan – who had had burns to nearly 80% of his body. By the time he was confined, it was clear the burns were gone, a feat of healing that Janet found deeply disturbing when comparing it to Sam’s progress. She was sure, now, that Sam’s heart had been damaged, and almost certain that the damage to her lungs had been much worse than it was now. But Sam was also no longer healing faster than any other human.

Given Sam’s unconscious state, they had connected her to an EEG. At first the pattern had confused everyone until it had dawned on Janet that they were picking up brainwaves from the goa’uld as well as from Sam. It had taken a little time to fine tune it, but they now had two separate recordings.

“I’ve just finished reading your report, doctor.”

Janet looked up from her notes and ponderings and nodded to the general. “You have questions.” She knew he would – she’d stuck strictly to the facts in her written report, and as there were few of them, the result was unsatisfying.

Hammond half-smiled and accepted the chair across from Janet’s desk with a sigh. “They don’t show any signs of waking up?”

“None. I was just reviewing the EEG –“ she turned the computer monitor so he could see a sample of the slow, quiet recordings. “And I’m sure that both Sam and the goa’uld are deeply unconscious. In a coma.”

“Any idea of how long that will persist?”

“No, sir. But given that Captain Carter isn’t healing any fast than a normal human, it could be quite a while.”

“Do you think we have a chance of removing the goa’uld?”

“No.” Janet’s answer to that was flat and uncompromising. When Hammond frowned at the absoluteness of it, she raised her hand to keep the quiet until she could articulate her thoughts. “Sir, Sam would be dead three times over if the goa’uld wasn’t present. She wouldn’t have made it back to earth, much less pulled through the crisis when the Colonel got her here, and that’s from the shrapnel damage she took. As for the blast to her shoulder and head… sir, in any other case I’d say it was a miracle she _wasn’t_ dead from that. At present, the only tangible effect I can discern from the goa’uld is that there is no infection. None. If there was, Sam would be lost. She’s in that critical a state.”

Hammond did not like the answer – he wanted to hope they could get rid of goa’uld and save Sam. But not having to decide to take that risk was a relief of a kind. “What about the goa’uld? It’s injuries?”

Janet shrugged slightly. “I am guessing, sir, but I think it will recover before Sam does. From the perspective of body mass to injured area, it’s much worse off than Sam. But that has to be balanced against its natural ability to heal and we just don’t have anywhere near enough data to be sure – but I think it will recover first.”

“General Hammond!” The aide at the door looked slightly panicked, and when Hammond stood, explained hastily that the prisoner was demanding to see him.

* * *

Jack glared through the cell’s bars at the goa’uld sitting on the bed. The creature stared back through its host’s eyes, his expression flat and cold enough to burn.

Hammond walked in. The outside half of the cell was crowded – four guards, all with their weapons to hand did not leave a great deal of space.

**“You are in command here?”** demanded the goa’uld harshly.

Hammond did not blink. “Yes.”

**“I am a _god_ , foolish human. You. Will. Let. Me. GO!”**

Hammond turned to Jack. “Colonel, has it said anything more interesting?”

“No, sir.”

The ashrak was angry. Furious even. But it was not in its nature to act precipitously, nor to underestimate humans… much. **“I have no interest in you, or your world, human,”** it hissed, stepping up to the line it had been told not to cross. **“I seek one of my own kind, a… criminal. Let me go and I will leave you alone.”** It lied, of course. They would pay for imprisoning it, sooner or later.

“Now, that’s new.” Jack said mildly. “Some sort of internal snake versus snake issue do you think?”

Hammond shook his head and gestured Jack out of the room. Once he thought they were clear, he spoke. “It would explain why they were hiding.”

Jack grimaced. “Yeah. Best guess we have from the Nasyans is that they were there well before we showed up.”

“Which doesn’t fit with anything aimed at us.” Hammond turned the permutations over in his mind. “We just got caught in the crossfire.” Disgust laced his tone.

Jack shook his head. “Carter… Carter got caught in the crossfire.”

Hammond had no comfort to offer there. Only… “With this one in custody, however, I’ve been able to block the NID from getting any access to her.”

Jack winced and nodded. It was something.

**“ _Human!”_** came the yell from inside the cell and Jack and Hammond turned back with a start, Exchanging a look, they re-entered warily.

The ashrak gave them a narrow-eyed glare before smiling slightly.

Jack’s blood turned icy at that smile. He’d seen that kind of gleeful, sadistic expression before, albeit on a human.

**“You have her,”** it said, it’s tone low and conciliatory, ill-matched to the smirk in its expression. **“I should not have thought you wouldn’t, not if _I_ am here.”**

Jack and Hammond didn’t answer.

**“You have no idea what prize you have, _human_. I have hunted her for longer than your miserable lifetimes! All of the System Lords – every single one – will pay very highly for her capture or her death; she is a traitor and worse.” ** It let out a short huff, half laughter, half disdainful snort. **“You could trade her to one of the most powerful for his protection. Even Apophis would pardon the shol’vah much to have her in his hands.”**

“Yeah, well, don’t hold your breath, snake.” Jack threw back at it sharply.

“Colonel.” Hammond rebuked mildly.

The ashrak smiled again, mocking – and confident. **“Give her to me and let us go!”** it demanded. **“Or you _will_ pay for your insane refusal!”**

Jack quit the room, Hammond on his heels. They would reconvene, with Daniel and Teal’c, in the briefing room.

* * *

 

“It is lying.”

Jack scowled. “We _know_ that, Teal’c. But it’s clear it wants to get its nasty little flippers on the goa’uld in Carter.”

Daniel took his glasses off and rubbed his eyes tiredly. “Jack… we don’t know very much about goa’uld politics.”

“You think this is political?” Hammond broke in.

The four of them continued to try and make sense of it since it seemed likely it would repeat the ‘offer’ and demands to the NID who were due to arrive in a couple of hours to take it into their custody. They had come to no conclusions when the base alarms went off.

 

* * *

 

The ashrak could be patient when required. But waiting on humans had fast become intolerable – and when it made its move, the mere four guards were dispatched easily. Three had not even gotten off a shot, and the fourth only a few; nothing critical to its host was damaged, so it kept right on going. Finding the infirmary was easier than even it had expected – and once in range, it was able to home in at last on the naquadah signal of his target.

But it underestimated the humans.


	2. Screwed

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mistakes are made.  
> Warning: contains swear words and (sort of) explicit reference to torture.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> To the people who read chapter 1 and particularly those who left kudos and/or wrote reviews, THANK YOU. I hope chapter 2 doesn't disappoint!

It had thought the human’s projectile weapons insignificant. One bullet certainly was, or even two or three. A dozen proved to be too much; the ashrak was shocked by the intensity of the pain when its host’s gut was shredded and lungs perforated. Had it the option, it would have moved to another host but it could not. Instead, it had to expend its energy to heal _this_ host, a task that proved to be infuriatingly time consuming.

Before it finished healing, it was even more infuriated when a powerful tranquiliser was introduced to its host’s blood; filtering it out was tedious, and when it had nearly finished, its captors repeated the dose. When it was at last able to re-engage it’s host’s senses and observe its surroundings, it was very near to enraged. The unsurprising discovery that it was heavily restrained (and an annoyed yank proved that the restraints would not break easily) kept its temper simmering.

Damian Bell had reached a high level in the NID’s organisation, mostly on the basis of steel-clad nerves, a talent for thinking ‘out of the box’ and a coldly calculated willingness to cross whatever lines required to accomplish his goal. Right now, he wanted the alien prisoner to talk. “Make it hurt,” he said softly to the two experienced interrogators in front of him. “The SGC played nice, it got them three dead guys and a dozen wounded. You’ve all read the report on how fast it heals, how much we tranked it. Don’t hold back.”

* * *

 

General Hammond had more than enough to keep him frantically busy; he assigned Colonel O’Neill and the remainder of his team the task of finding a new home for the Nasyans but that still left the considerable headaches of managing more than two hundred people entirely unfamiliar with Earth and all a security risk just by being here. Worrying about the goa’uld the NID had taken off their hands dropped to the bottom of his priority list.

Two days was how long it took. One to locate a suitable planet, and one more to put through enough basic supplies to ensure the Nasyans had a chance and then to send the people. SG-5, SG-9 and two nurses were assigned to stay for a week to help them settle in and report on what longer term assistance might be required. The gate shut down after the last one was through – and the base was suddenly quiet again.

Hammond did not need to ask where SG-1 was now; he went directly to the infirmary and the isolation room where Captain Carter lay. Stopping at the door, he took a minute to just watch.

Daniel sat beside Sam, looking at her face, his silent misery writ plain on his face.  
Jack’s expression was tight and mask-like; he was fiddling with a yo-yo as he leaned against the wall.  
Teal’c sat beside Jack, deep in concentration as he wrote out his report on SG-1’s recent assignment.

The ever-present guards had withdrawn slightly, watchful but sombre. Hammond left them alone and found Dr Frasier next door. “No change.” It was a statement, not a question.

Janet glanced up from her task but finished tidying before answering. “No, sir. There is no change.”

* * *

That evening, Janet shooed SG-1 out. Teal’c could stay, she allowed, but Jack and Daniel both needed to go eat and rest. Technically, she could have left the task for Dr Warner who was on duty for the rest of the day but she knew better. Warner wasn’t a pushover; he couldn’t be to work here. But he didn’t quite have the backbone needed to deal with SG-1.

Weary beyond words, Janet rode the elevators to the surface, collected Cassandra from the clutches of Louis Feretti found a smile for the painting she was presented with and took her daughter home. Not particularly wanting to cook, she suggested pizza – Cassie agreed with _almost_ the right note of enthusiasm. Janet blinked back tears.

“Mom?”

Janet paused as she tucked Cassie into bed and looked. _Oh, hell_. She sighed, brushed a stray wisp of hair from Cassie’s face and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Sweetheart?”

“Sam’s not better.”

“No. She was very very badly hurt.”

“Will she get better?”

 _Breathe_ , Janet told herself. “Cassie… Remember I told you that it was complicated?”

“Yes.”

“Well, the big complication is that there is a goa’uld.”

Cassie’s eyes were very wide all of a sudden and she clutched at the sheets nervously. “In… in _Sam_?” she whispered.

Janet would have given anything not to have to have this conversation. But she couldn’t keep it from Cassie, not anymore. She’d done so at first only because if Sam hadn’t made it, it wouldn’t have needed to be said at all. “Yes, sweetheart.”

“But… but… can you get it out?” Tears welled up in Cassie’s eyes as she silently pled for there to be some way for it all to be made better.

“I’m sorry,” Janet answered, her heart breaking yet again. “I don’t know. But Cassie… if the goa’uld wasn’t there, Sam would already be dead. Since Sam isn’t dead yet, we’re not going to give up.”

Cassie nodded and sat up to fling her arms around Janet, clinging tight as she cried. Janet held her just as tightly, and when the tears subsided, she tucked her in again. Fetching a book of fairytales, where evil always loses, good always wins and the hero and heroine never die, Janet read aloud until her daughter slept.

* * *

It was too angry to talk. When the humans were met with its contemptuous silence, they proved to lack patience; they resorted to inflicting pain. Once again, it realised it had underestimated these humans. They were limited without access to a sarcophagus; they could not kill it. But they were inventive. It never spoke, never screamed. Not when they hit it. Not when they broke and twisted its fingers. Not when they burnt the skin from its back. Not when they smashed the bones of its feet and ground the fragments into the torn flesh.

Instead, it catalogued every moment, every injury, every indignity with the eidetic memory of its species.

* * *

Sam was never left alone. Jack, Daniel and Teal’c split most of the time between them but they weren’t the only ones who had a share in the unacknowledged vigil. Sam’s colleagues in the science section, the other SG teams, the stargate technicians. Between them, there was always someone there.

She was alive; it let them hope.

She was a host; that was acid destroying the hope.

* * *

Eventually, its tormenters left it alone for a time. Only hours, true – but it was enough. It did not bother to expend energy healing its host; it did not deem it worthwhile. Finally, a human approached. It noted it was not one of the two that had questioned it. The human came _very_ close. It listened idly to the silky suggestion that perhaps now it was rethinking its intransigence. It bared its teeth at that, but whispered some nonsense. It proved to be enough temptation; the human came just close enough.

It broke the chains on one arm and grabbed the human, a vicious yank bringing it down on top of the ashrak. A few seconds was all it needed to leave the old host for the new. Control was instant and it played the charade of being the host just long enough to ‘flee the prisoner’s attack’ and get out of the cell. It was all the opportunity it needed. Unblended humans are so _fragile_.

* * *

When Jack arrived at the SGC, he was told to report to General Hammond’s office immediately.

Hammond did not smile as his 2IC arrived grumbling about not even being allowed to get his coffee. “Colonel O’Neill, shut the door.”

Jack ceased his muttering as soon as he had a good look at Hammond’s face.

“You know Colonel Maybourne,” Hammond said quietly, indicating their guest.

Jack studied the guy and for once, kept quiet. Maybourne did not look happy – Jack noted his pallor, the twitchy stance and the way he barely managed to meet Jack’s eyes.

“Maybourne was just apprising me of a situation.”

“Oh,” Jack drawled softly. “Let me guess. Your goa’uld escaped.”

Harry Maybourne flinched. “Unfortunately, Colonel O’Neill, you are correct.” To his credit, Maybourne was succinct and explicit. He detailed where the goa’uld had been held and what had been done to it. When it came to how it escaped, he gave all the details he had. “Yesterday evening, the agent in charge – Bell – reported that he was going to see if a carrot might get a response. The next anyone heard was a panicked call in by one of the junior agents that the goa’uld had escaped.”

“But what you reported of its condition…” Hammond prompted.

“We believe it took Agent Bell as its host.”

“How sure are you?”

Maybourne flinched again and paled just a little more. “The facility had a self-destruct; it went off a minute after we got the call about the escape. We thought initially that the goa’uld was have been killed in the blast, but this morning, someone went to Agent Bell’s house. He… he was married. He had two daughters, both under five.”

The _past tense_ Maybourne was using was not missed by Hammond or Jack.

“All three had been tortured; they’d died a couple of hours before our people got there. It was… if you need details…”

Jack was clenching his jaw so hard his teeth were aching. _Fucking idiots._ He kept himself quiet by working his way through his vocabulary of appropriate adjectives.

Hammond’s blood had gone ice cold already; he didn’t want to know more details. “If we need, we’ll get them later,” he ground out.

Maybourne just nodded, taking the reprieve gratefully. “We checked our systems. Bell’s logins were used to get in during the night; he dumped a worm into it that’s scrambled a lot of our records. Possibly deleted some. We’ve issued an order to all our agents to apprehend him by any means possible, including lethal force. The file I gave you-” he indicated the folder sitting in the middle of Hammond’s desk, “-has Bell’s details and photos.”

Hammond glanced at the file and nodded. “You said when you arrived that you had been assigned to liaison with us.”

“Yes. I – I was ordered to render any assistance I can.”

Given how uncooperative the NID usually was, Hammond surmised that for once, the right person had gotten a wakeup call about the seriousness of what they were dealing with. It was horrifying that it had taken something like this – but he could not waste time on that train of thought. Instead, after immediately increasing security to the entrance to the facility, he pulled up one of the SGC’s scenarios and spent the nest fifteen minutes reviewing options with O’Neill and Maybourne.

* * *

Once the various changes that they’d agreed on were initiated, Jack was free to join Daniel and Teal’c in the infirmary.

“Jack?” Daniel was the first to see him and he packed a lot of concern into one questioning word.

“Daniel.” Jack answered through gritted teeth as he walked over and looked down at Sam’s silent face. “We have a problem.”

“O’Neill,” Teal’c said, standing up from his usual place by the wall. “I have noticed there are now guards outside this room.”

“Yeah. Remember our other little goa’uld friend? The one the NID were so damn _pleased_ to get their _fucking goddamned incompetent_ hands on?”

“Jack…”

“Well, whaddya know… they screwed up. It blew up their so secure facility, tortured some civilians, screwed with their computer systems and its running around this country **on the _loose._** ” Jack was almost yelling by the last word.

“ _Colonel O’Neill!_ ”

Jack froze.

Janet glared at him from the doorway. “Colonel, if you want to yell, go somewhere else.” When she got no answer, she disappeared back to her interrupted task.

Jack abruptly sat down, bracing his head on his hands for a minute. His teammates stayed quiet, processing the news. “Teal’c.”

“O’Neill.”

“What does ‘ _ashrak_ ’ mean?”

Teal’c began to answer but was cut off by a sudden beeping from one of the monitors attached to Sam.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, if anyone is like me and ponders such minutiae, I am assuming that for a symbiote to heal fast, it requires conscious effort on their part. If it is unconscious, it heals no faster than any other creature, and the same applies to their host. If the symbiote isn't actively making their host heal fast, they don't. Second, I'm working off the assumption a symbiote can heal pretty much anything, if they have time to do so before the host dies from their injuries.


End file.
